China's Guangdong Selects ASEAN as First Step To Go Overseas

In order to fully implement China Central Government authority's major strategy to speed up economic development transformation process, the Guangdong Provincial Government has come out with a full deployment measure to speed out its economic development transformation plan. These measures have included the response to China's 'Go Overseas' policy. For Guangdong, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries have become Guangdong Provincial Government's first gateway to 'go overseas.'

Wang Yang, China Central Committee Political Bureau's Party Secretary for Guangdong, pointed out that ASEAN countries are China's neighboring countries. He said that in addition to the geographical proximity, the cultural characteristics of China and ASEAN countries are also quite close to one another. Although there are differences in one another's national systems, over the years, China and ASEAN nations have developed more understand with one another.

Wang Yang cited Singapore as an example. He said that among the ASEAN countries, Singapore was a knowledge and technology-intensive country, but China was still a labor-intensive country. Moreover, the political and economic systems of Singapore and China are also different. However, Malaysia is a moderately developing country. But Malaysia's electronic technology development is what China can use for reference.

Economic Development Implementation Plan
Wang Yang said that except Singapore, other ASEAN countries are developing countries. This is the reason why the Guangdong Provincial Government would want to choose ASEAN countries as its first step 'to go out to overseas.' By choosing ASEAN countries as its first gateway to go out, Wang Yang said this could mean that the overall cost of Guangdong government's economic development implementation plan would also be reduced.

Wang Yang said this on behalf of the Guangdong Provincial Government and as the representative of the Guangdong Provincial Communist Party of China (CPC) Party Committee when he received the World Chinese Media Group media delegation from Malaysia when the media group paid official visit to Guangdong Province.

Guangdong's Trade Volume With Malaysia on Increase
Wang Yang said he was happy to note of the continual increase of trade volume between Guangdong Province and Malaysia. He hoped that the trade volume between Guangdong and ASEAN countries, including Malaysia could further be strengthened.

Wang Yang said one of the major economic reform implementation strategies for Guangdong province to speed its economic development model is to increase domestic demand in order to change the old trade model that had to rely heavily on external trade demand.

He said that the Guangdong province has carried out reform and has opened up to foreign trade for 30 years. All along, the province has put strong emphasis to develop foreign trade demand. The result was that when global financial storm landed on Guangdong, the economy of the province could not avoid affecting by it. As such, the goal of the Guangdong Provincial Government would now be speeding up its domestic demand. Although such a change might take a long time to achieve, it was necessary.

Way To Carry Out Guangdong's Style Economic Development
Wang Yang said what Guangdong province should do was to develop the Guangdong style economic development model and not the Singapore style or the US style economic development model. He said the Guangdong Provincial Government is currently seeking a consensus, common understanding with the people so that both the provincial government and the people could walk the same path and that given time, the Guangdong style of economic development model could be achieved.

Referring to the coming Asian Games to be held in Guangdong province, Wang Yang said the Guangdong province would be the first province besides capital Beijing to hold such a large scale Asian Games international sport event. He said the ability of Guangdong to hold the Asian Games reflected the strength of the Guangdong Provincial Government. He said the basic infrastructure of the Guangdong Provincial Government was in no way inferior to Qatar, the host of the last Asian Games.

Wang Yang also emphasized that ever since the Guangdong province opened up for economic reform in the past 30 years, the province has focused so much on economic development it had ignored the cultural construction. As such, under the target to speed up its economic development goal, the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and the Guangdong Provincial Government would also further strengthen the cultural construction to ensure that the soft power and hard power infrastructure of the province could be combined and strengthened as one.

The following is the conversation with Wang Yang:

Question: Transformation of economic development is the top priority in China. This is also the general world trend. Since Guangdong Provincial Government is a pioneer and forerunner of China's economic development transformation policy, how does the Guangdong Provincial Government change the mindset and thinking of the government workers at all levels? Can all government officials discard the traditional economic development mindset and embrace the new economic development model without carrying with them the historical burden?

Answer: We used almost a year to come out with different stage of development to change the mindset of our government officials at different levels. After we had done that, we also carried out large scale work training programs including the introduction to government officials the understanding of modern financial industry and to allow them to grasp basic financial knowledge. Recently the Development Center of the Central Department of State had sent personnel to Guangdong providence to carry out site inspection. The conclusion of the site inspection was that all the Guangdong provincial officials from top to bottom level did understand our economic development transformation strategy.

Question: You attach great importance to the development of web media, and dialogue with users. You had also held dialogues with the web community. During these dialogues you had also encouraged the 'go out to overseas' economic strategy adopted by the Guangdong Provincial Government. Is it possible for the Guangdong Province Government to carry out the promotion of trade cooperation with overseas businesses through the media portal with friendly ties with China? This would allow the overseas businesses especially the overseas ethnic Chinese to understand the characteristics and special features of Guangdong province's development plan.

Answer: The Internet is without borders. On my part, personally I am willing to cooperate and exchange my view with the network media. As regards to carrying out publicity on the promotion of Guangdong's economic transformation plans I feel it is still not fit to do at this very moment.

Question: Whether it was to study flood control or environmental restoration projects, you have put special attention to gauge the opinions of the masses. You would also carry out public opinion surveys as and when needed. Through public forum, you also proposed the implementation of the 'Pearl River Delta Development Point Plan.' When you carried out this kind of public forums for the evaluation and implementation of polices, will you often encounter differences in opinions between the masses and the provincial government's position in these situations? How does the Guangdong Provincial Government manage to resolve this kind of confrontational opinions between the government officials and the general public?

Answer: The different views will make our decisions more perfect. The processes of major changes will inevitable goes through the cursing process from the masses. However as the masses curse, they also play a supervisory and monitoring role for the government. If the future society turns better, the masses will turn their curses into praises. Different voices will make us improve. This is the practical application of democracy.

China Amends Election Law

China's National People's Congress (NPC) is now discussing the NPC Election Law Amendment Act (draft). One of the most significant contents of the election law amendment is in the implementation of one vote each for rural and urban folk in the election of NPC representatives. This election law amendment, when passed will allow people in rural and urban districts having equal right for election. This will be the most important political reform measure taken by China in recent years.

The amended election law will not only enhance the status of farmers in the political life of China, it will also move China one step forward to pave the cornerstone for democratic political development.

Adjustment and Restriction
Since the urban population in China is much lower than the population in rural districts. As such, the election law enacted by China in 1953 has made adjustment and restriction governing the ratio of total representatives of NPC coming from rural and urban population. Since 1995 until today, China has maintained its NPC representatives from urban districts and rural districts in the ratio of 4:1. In other words, the representatives of urban NPC are four times more than the NPC representatives coming from the rural district.

Now the Chinese authority is ready to amend the electoral law on the ground that in the past 15 years, the urban and rural population structure has undergone big changes. The level of nationwide literacy and education, especially the education and literacy in rural areas has markedly improved. In addition, the Chinese national leaders also feel that at nationwide, the conscious for the people in wanting to have a democratic judiciary system in place has also notably increased in strength.

Socialist Democratic Political Environment
Under all these situations, the authority feels that the implementation of a new election law that can allow China to have same ratio of NPC representatives coming from rural and urban districts can boost the mobilization of creativity and pro-activeness of all the people in China. . This is China's urbanization process. This is based on the practical need to coordinate urban and rural development. This is also an inevitable requirement for China to move along the development of a socialist democratic political environment.

However, since the Chinese authority has defined this round of amendment to election law as the party's self-improvement effort toward democratic politics, we can only expect that no matter how the composition of the NPC representatives will change, one thing that will absolutely remain unchanged is that two-thirds majority of the NPC representatives will have to come from members of the Communist Party of China. However, it remains a fact that overall the education level of the farming population is still low as compared with the urban population.

Development of Democratic Politics
Moreover, the importance for the country to have a proper legislature structure as perceived by the farming households is also not very strong. This was one of the considerations why the Chinese authority did not want to implement the "one person one vote" electoral system in the past. At present stage, the Chinese authority has finally acknowledged that the major obstacle that has long troubled the development of democratic politics in China has been eliminated and it is ready to amend the election law.

Nevertheless, for China to truly and honestly implement direct election system and to allow the people to use their votes in hands to elect the people representatives of their choice from district to central level, it is still an unachievable dream for the people in China for the time being.

Political Reforms in China

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao presented his government work report recently at the 3rd session of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC). In this report, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao emphasized the importance of political reform for China. He also referred to the need for people to criticize as well as to keep watch on the government. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's report has aroused a high degree of attention from the local and overseas media.

Factor in National Building
In a gist, this is what Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao tried to express in his government work report: "China's reform is a comprehensive reform that includes the reform of economic system, the reform of political system as well as reform in other fields. Without the reform in political system, it is impossible to carry out reform in the economic system and to come out with modernization structure." From here we can clearly see that Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has put political reform as top priority among other reforms. As such public opinions usually view that through Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's work report, China has sent out a message that it would push forward the reform of its political system.

In fact, political reforms in China are not something new. The need to carry out political reforms have mentioned by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping during the early stage of New China. China has long put reform of political system as a decisive factor in the national building. As early as in 28 June 1986, Deng Xiaoping has, at the Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau mentioned that: "The success of economic reforms will have to depend on the success of political reforms. If we only do economic reform without going for political reform, economic reforms cannot be carried through. This is because in the first place, economic reforms will encounter many man-made human blockages."

From here we know that the political reform spirit as expressed by Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in his work report and Deng Xiaoping's political reform spirit is but a continuation of the Chinese leaders' political ideology. However, the significance of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's expression of political reform lies in the fact that this is the first time the Chinese Government has used such a clear format to put in a government work report that the reforms of China's political system is the decisive factor for China to open up reform in other areas of national development. In other words, political reforms in China will not stop at the theoretical level, now, but must work through the government to put it into practice.

Implementation Stage
In accordance with Deng Xiaoping's original design, political and economic reforms are the two interdependent legs that must go together in order to achieve reformation in China. However, after the 1989 Tiananmen incident, reforms of China's political system, was not mentioned by the Chinese leaders for a long time. What we heard was but the one-sided result of its economic reforms. It was also during this period that while China was going through a rapid economic development and economic prosperity era, China has, at the same time, also experienced unprecedented intense societal conflicts of many kinds. As an editorial of the Lianhe Zaobao that came out on the eve of China's CPPCC and NPC joint session said: The Communist Party of China (CPC) has already well-aware of the pending societal issues and has in 2007 and made major preparations aimed to correct these societal conflicts at the NPC. What Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao did this year was to put forward part of the political reforms as mentioned at the 2007 NPC into government's implementation stage.

However, one must take note that even the Chinese Government is determined to promote political reforms, now, the type of political reforms the Chinese Government has in mind is by no means the type of political reforms ordinary people has in mind. In China's political reforms, the "four basic cardinal principles" of the CCP will not be changed. In other words, the CCP's political life and leadership in China will not be changed even if it has carried out political reforms. At the opening CPPCC session, CPPCC Chairman Jia Qinglin has stressed strongly that China would resist the multiparty system and the two house system of the West. From what Jia Qinglin said that it was suffice to reflect the CPC's firm stance to adhere to its basic party principles.

New Political Environment
In modern political life, good political systems must be subordinated to the public. Public authority must also be subjected to checks and balances. In a democratic country, this is achieved through the elections of political parties to represent people's voices. The difficulties of China's political reforms are that under the premise of CPC's unwavering ruling status, the Chinese leaders must ensure that the CPC can still strengthen its self-restraint and self-monitoring power.

In his government work report, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao mentioned that the Chinese Government would create the conditions for people to criticize and supervise the government operations. Such statement by Wen Jiabao has shown that the top Chinese leadership, in fact, knows very well that if the government ruled by the CPC moves toward the alienation direction goes against the wish of the people because of the lack of a monitoring mechanism in the government, the consequence can be extremely worrisome to the CPC leaders. The question is: How can China create such conditions for political reforms? What are the conditions for China to create such a new political environment?

CPPCC-NPC Joint Sessions
In recent years, the democracy networks that prevail in the internet and the internet media have to a certain degree, have criticized the Chinese Government and served a watchdog role to check on the Chinese Government. However, there are limitations for these internet bodies to serve the watchdog role for the Chinese Government because they cannot serve the check and balance role to confront the political systems of the ruling party as well as for the ruling government.

The only way for China to have a watchdog mechanism on governmental affairs is to go back to the basic solution to carry out reforms in the government. If the CPC and the Chinese Government can create conditions to allow the CPPCC-NPC joint sessions to maximize the role to carry out some political reform, to certain extent, China can solve this problem. For example, China can explore if it can allow CPPCC to reassume some of its earlier functions when it was newly formed.

China should also explore if it can allow certain members of the CPC that hold strong democratic principle to form a real political party with substance? Within the NPC framework, China should also see if the NPC can truly represent the largest representation of public opinions, so that the NPC can truly exercise the power to present the will of people.

For decades, we have not heard the type of intense and vigorous debates in the CPPCC as we used to hear during the early days of the CPPCC when Mao Zedong and Liang Shuming used to voice out their different opinions at the CPPCC. We also notice that at the local level, it has now become the norm for the CPC secretary general to concurrently also taking up the role to become the organization CPPCC chairman.

Legislative and Supervisory Powers
Regardless of what innovation the Chinese leaders want to carry out political reforms, but if the CPPCC and NPC cannot fully and effectively exercise their legislative and supervisory powers stipulated under the Chinese Constitution, and turn China's political reforms into a true democratic and representative of public opinion mechanism that can monitor government operations; and if the CPPCC and NPC continue to become a tool for the CPC to carry out the will of the ruling party, there is no point to talk about political reforms in China. Without substance, political reform will be something that China cannot achieve at this very moment.